The REAL Steve Gray

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‘OZ’ creator Tom Fontana, while still labouring over the death of ‘Homicide:Life On The Street’ on NBC, got the go ahead to create a show, based in a prison that honestly reflected life inside. This meant language is extreme, violence is a constant, drugs are everywhere and sex is all about power.

The show is set in Emerald City, an experimental unit of the prison in which Tim McManus, the unit manager attempts to emphasize rehabilitation and learning responsibility during incarceration. This often goes very, very wrong.

The show has a ‘greek chorus’ in the shape of Harold Perrineau Jr as Augustus Hill. The forth wall is dropped so Augustus can address us directly and comment on the never ending action. After the actor had to leave before the 6th and last season to begin work on ‘Lost’, the narrator role was filled by characters who had died in the preceding 5 seasons. There were many to choose from.

There are many characters we fall in love with, but it soon becomes clear that the screwed up love between Tobias Beecher, a lawyer convicted of manslaughter while drunk driving, and Chris Keller, a sociopath with murderous impulses, is going to be one of the reasons we watch every week. And what a foul relationship they have. And many characters die in the path of their love affair.

But the characters who do survive, (because in ‘OZ’, major characters die with great regularity), are so well written, and are put through so much hell you care for them far more than is normal for a TV show. We also quickly learn no-one is innocent and people are capable of the most horrific cruelty.

The show gave Edie Falco her break, before she left to create Carmela in ‘The Sopranos’. J.K. Simmons, Kathryn Erbe, B.D. Wong and Christopher Meloni all went to the ‘Law and Order’ franchise. Dean Winters jumped to ‘The Sarah Jane Chronicles’ and heaps of other stuff. The actors pop up all over the place and I always find myself thinking of ‘OZ’ when I see them.

The show is not available here, yet, but is well worth getting form overseas. You have never seen a show like it. One minute you are in terror. The next, you cannot stop crying. It even has a musical episode. And who better to give the last word to the wonderful Sister Peter Marie, played by Broadway legend Rita Moreno. All the passion she brings to this song is how you will feel about the show after watching it.

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